Chapter 19: Served at the Winter Market

I stood in my own doorway with the porch light on Kendra's face and did not step aside.

"You can't stay here," I said.

"Miles, it's one night."

"There's a child asleep upstairs."

"That's why I came to the door and not the window," she said, and tried to smile.

It was a bad smile, and she knew it, and it broke.

"I've got nobody. My sister said I can't come back after the video."

"The studio is gone. The car belongs to a friend I lied to."

"Then I'll pay for a hotel," I said.

"One room, one week, and then you call your sister and apologize to her properly."

She stared at the card I held out.

"A week," she said.

"After three years."

"After three years of rooms like that one, you mean."

Her face changed.

I had seen that change in the parking garage, and I was ready for it this time.

"You're pathetic," she said, in a low voice.

"You think this makes you a good man? You write a check and shut the door?"

"No," I said.

"I think it makes me a man who finally knows where the door is."

She took the card out of my hand and tore it in half.

"I'll make sure that boy's whole school knows exactly what his father is," she said.

"Every parent. Every teacher. By Monday."

I closed the door, quietly.

I didn't lock it until I heard her suitcase wheels go all the way down the street.

By Monday morning, the video had been emailed to the school's entire parent list.

It came from an address nobody recognized, with the subject line Do you know who your children are around?

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